~ studying the art of fragrance

Bastille Day!

Here’s an ad for Marianne, “the perfume of the bicentennial.” It was released in 1988 for the anniversary of the French Revolution, and its bottle is a stylized bust of Marianne, the embodiment of the French Republic, a personification of freedom and reason. (She sports a “Phrygian cap,” a hat worn in the ancient Roman Empire by former slaves who were freed by their masters and thus attained liberty and citizenship.)

I’ve never seen (or smelled) this fragrance in person, but its ad seems appropriate for Bastille Day. Liberté, égalité, fraternité!